Photos: Soul Descenders

I had no idea what to expect with Soul Descenders, the first of four bands playing for Story of the Year's CD release for The Constant. As it turned out, these boys rocked out like guitar heroes. Hair whips, on-the-knees-shredding, and powerstances.

As I tweeted just after their set, I do love photographing metal. There's an inherent energy in the music that has the capacity to translate into really dynamic concert photography. And even if the stage treatment is dark, that kinetic power manages to still come through.

In addition, it's always a nice surprise to be basically blown away by the first act of the night. Sure, the night was pretty dim, but when a band's frontman goes down on his knees at the edge of the stage to shred, lighting takes a backseat to buckling down and nailing the shot.

As I've mentioned before, I think there's a really nice freedom that can come with photographing opening bands. The same lack of pressure to deliver or even skip the set can be used to push through the challenges of bad light and crazy motion to bring home something more lasting.

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Nikon D850: I use two Nikon D850 for my live music photography. A true do-it-all DSLR with amazing AF, fast response, and no shortage of resolution.

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Wow, an ISO of 6400, and I was cringing at using my max of 3200. Metal shows ARE a lot of fun. One of my favorites was Arch Enemy – something about a chick rocker is amazing to shoot.

Let me ask you something, as it’s something I struggle with: Does the harsh red light ever bother you? I sometimes worry that I’m losing the integrity of my shots when they’re soo overpowered by red, and it just seems that so many of my shoots are drowning in red (partly from the venues I’m working with, and partly the music genres I feature…) How much post work did you do on these shots?

I had to jump aboard and comment on just how wonderful metal shows are to shoot. I personally had the opportunity to shoot Behemoth a few months back, and while their musical style may not be my cup of tea, the absolutely incredible amount of energy the guys poured into every second of their performance was just a sight to see. Even more lucky, I got to shoot during their ENTIRE set, after a little bit of chatting with security.

I’m not surprised you had to crank it to ISO 6400 for the shots of this opening band, as its common for the lights to be far less extravagant than they are for the headliner. And the motion blur on the bassist’s hair from shooting at 1/40 is a great effect as well.

Thanks for the kind words. Knowing this venue, I wasn’t surprised at the light for these guys either. I was, however, impressed by how well Lightroom 3 beta dealt with the WB shift that helped add more depth back into the images.

Thanks for the kind words, though I have to say that a lot of it is the small size of these images. The D3 and D700 are good, but there is still some luminance noise here. What those two cameras are very good at is quite low chroma noise.

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For over a decade, ishootshows.com has been the best source for music photography and learning how to shoot concerts. Founded in 2007 by NYC music photographer Todd Owyoung, features over 1,100 articles ranging from lenses and DSLRs to use for music photography, to concert coverage, and advanced technique for anyone wanting to learn how to get into music photography.

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